It wasn't just this year's cards in the pile, sadly. I have been cutting cards into gift tags for years now. It was only this year when Bill and I set up separate gift wrapping centres and found we had an ample supply (read ten years or so) of said tags that I decided enough was enough. Given that we will receive more Christmas cards well in advance of running out of gift tags, I can actually discard the present supply with gay abandon (or something like that)..
In the same box I also found a few cards that I'd put aside because they had no envelope. My plan was to figure out how to make envelopes for these. I found this excellent tutorial showing how to make envelopes from scratch and how to trim larger envelopes to a more useful size. She makes it look really easy. With a bit more patience and practice (and a decent glue stick) one could probably do a pretty good job of replacing cards. However, after a couple of attempts, I added those orphaned cards to the others for recycling! Sewing is my priority, not cards
I divvied the pile into two roughly equal quantities and bagged them up. They went to Dorothy and Joan, the two card making ladies at the sewing group who always give me stunning hand-made birthday and Christmas cards. It was fun watching them all pore over the collection and very satisfying to pass it on to good homes.
What do you do with your old Christmas cards?
5 comments:
I have a few stacks of cards from Christmases past to go through! My sister-in-law saves her cards for Christmas tags too, which is a great idea.
I usually tie them up with ribbon and put them with the rest ;o) I am irrationally sentimental about them lol. I kept one in particular...in my daybook...the picture is a little boy pulling a little Christmas tree through the snow with his little Jack Russell. It looks like my son and little dog so I am always happy when I look at it.
Like you and your husband, in seasons past I have cut up remnants to fashion gift tags. In subsequent years I'd stashed the cards in photo storage boxes, but had accumulated such a stack that last fall I weeded through and tossed loads into the recycling bin.
I don't care for the waste, but also do not relish the idea of hoarding something that will not be of interest or use to others. But handing over old cards to paper-crafting friends is a fab idea I think I will adopt!
Jo would always set them aside and then sometime after Christmas, maybe in July, put them away. The next year they would come out and be tossed so we could do this all over again. Back at the house I have two stacks of cards. One stack is a huge number of sympathy cards I received after Jo's death and the other is the Christmas cards I/we received this past Christmas. Couldn't bring myself to discard either stack before I left for Florida.
I hang on to them every year, but then when we receive more the following year, I go through and salvage any I think I might eventually make into another card. I discard the rest.
Post a Comment